Bathroom policies that make sense

It is always nice to Friday blog a positive story.

Pierce College, a community college in the state of Washington, issued a memo to the college community this week about the use of bathrooms by transgender individuals. My cursory Google news search did not reveal any particular incident, though what I suspect has happened is that trans* and gender queer people’s use of bathrooms on campus is upsetting some individuals who have turned to the administration for redress.

This was the response from the college’s Title IX coordinator (also the VP for human resources):

Recently we have received questions from members of the college community at both Fort Steilacoom and Puyallup about transgender individuals and restroom use. The short answer is that every member of the Pierce College community is free to use whichever restroom aligns with their gender identity. Pierce College is also in the process of identifying gender neutral restrooms on both campuses, which will be available for anyone to use, regardless of gender identity or expression.

It is not up to other people to determine whether or not a given person is in the “right” restroom. If an individual chooses to enter that restroom, it is the right restroom for them. (In the rare event that they entered the restroom by mistake, they will certainly exit upon realizing the mistake without any outside help.)

She does go into the long answer which involves state and federal laws and includes some links for additional information, including one about the application of Title IX protections to transgender students.

The response reminded me a little of this photo from the Transcending Gender Project that I have seen around social media in the past few weeks.

Of course as we have seen in the several cases of high school athletic associations attempting to pass policies governing the participation of trans* athletes, bathrooms and locker rooms cause some people to grow quite agitated. There is a presumption, which I mentioned the other day, that trans* people are predatory and will engage in sexual acts with unwilling cisgender people in bathroom spaces. Thus, people who report a trans* or gender queer person using the “wrong” bathroom may feel they are being preemptive when they call security. The letter to the Pierce College community addressed this as well:

If any person is behaving dangerously or actively harassing others in a restroom or any other Pierce College space, please contact Campus Safety. The mere presence of someone using the restroom does not qualify as a dangerous or harassing activity and should not be cause for alarm or complaint.